Tuesday, April 29, 2008

Parable of the Sudden Pond

Once there was a pond, a stone’s throw across. Its water was clear, and its fish and invertebrates lived in a well-balanced aquatic paradise.

A few stone-throws’ away is another pond, one covered thick with a prolific reddish scum which could double itself in weight and size every day, which had long since choked the life out of that pond, where no fish could live.

One day, a careless angler, who had had no luck at the second pond, cast his lure into the first pond. Clinging to the lure was a strand of the red algae. He caught a basketful of fish, then casually departed, leaving the strand of algae in the pond.

One year later, he returned, and found that about one-eighth of the pond had become infested with the algae. He had learned that the presence of the algae meant the impending demise of the fish. But except for the unthreatening reddish patches floating here and there, the pond looked beautiful and healthy as before.

He smiled, thinking of his wedding in four days’ time at the very bank of this picturesque pond. He promised himself to come back with a rubber raft and a net to scoop as much of the algae from the pond as possible – after the wedding.

When he arrived on the fourth day, resplendent in his tuxedo, he was shocked to see that the pond had become covered from bank to bank with the algae, and dead fish was floating bloated in the ruddy scum. It was then he realized, too late, that the eighth doubled itself into the quarter on the first day, the quarter doubled itself into a half on the second day, and the half doubled itself into the whole on the third day.

A few years later, he brought his son and daughter back to the pond, which he had since cleaned up and reseeded with fish, and told them, “The climate of our world is changing. Just because this valley still looks okay does not mean that the whole planet is okay. Drastic changes could hit us like a freight train, just when you least expect it.”

Speaking of global warming, we are petitioning the nations of the world to donate 10% of their respective military budgets to a United-Nations-created-and-administered Global Green Fund, totaling $120 billion per year, to heal our planet Earth.

Please go to the following site, sign the petition, make a strong comment, and pass the petition far and wide.

Friday, April 4, 2008

At this stage of the Animal Rights movement, the subject of global warming is by and large considered irrelevant, and thus ignored. This has to change, immediately or sooner...Why?

The obvious initial answer is that the animal industry generates more greenhouse gasses than the transportation system.

A meat-eater riding a bicycle generates more GHGs than a vegan driving a Hummer. So, yes, veganism definitely is a solution.

But even if all 6 billion humans on Earth suddenly become vegans tomorrow, there is still a greater problem requiring an even great solution - stopping GHG release from all sources altogether in record time, failing which a full-blown and unstoppable 6th Mass Extinction will descend upon the Earth.

A medium case scenario presented by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) projects a temperature rise of 3 degrees Celsius and a "moderate" reduction of 30% of Earth’s biodiversity (currently totaling about 20 million species) by 2100. As early as 2007, however, the Arctic-meltdown and Amazon-drought combination exceeded IPCC’s worst case scenario by 300%. How much more of the worst case scenario can we exceed given a whole century of continued human selfishness, shortsightedness and stupidity? (see http://www.all-creatures.org/hope/gw/01_projections_&_scenarios.htm ).

Our business-as-usual, economy-over-ecology way of dealing with global warming (see http://www.all-creatures.org/hope/gw/01_nations'_energy.htm) points at a global temperature rise in excess of the “6-degrees-Celsius/10-degrees-Fahrenheit” threshold where over 90% of all Earth’s species would go extinct, possibly including our own.

And we haven't even calculated the impact of the most dangerous substance on Earth - methane clathrate (methan hydrate), currently in solid form in the permafrost and under the sea. But the ocean is warming and the permafrost is melting. The methane being released is >20 time more powerful as a GHG than carbon dioxide. More methane in the atmosphere, more intense global warming, more methane released... Such a positive feedback loop will drive global warming into unstoppable and merciless runaway global heating.

The point to be made here is that the activities of our species are dooming millions of species of animals and plants to extinction. No crime perpetrated by us throughout our blood-soaked history, against humanity or against nature, can be greater than this.

Since it is already happening, it is our responsibility to do all we can to minimize the carnage as soon as possible.

We have no right to destroy in a century what took millions of years to evolve. In other words, we have no right to categorically eradicate God’s creation. And the animals, whose rights we champion, have every right to live, and live in harmony with an unpolluted environment.

If the Animal Rights movement does not rise in defense of these otherwise doomed species, including all mammals and birds, what will?

How?

I will not bore you with small talk about changing light bulbs and insulating houses. There will be no light bulbs to change and no houses to insulate within a century unless we shut down the most gargantuan monstrosity our species has ever created - the hideous and damned Alberta Tar Sands.

Within 3 years.

This is more than a David-v-Goliath contest, but one akin to mouse-v-dinosaur. Even members of Mission Impossible say, “Impossible”. But I think otherwise. I will not bore you with more words here. Please see the Tar Sands for yourselves, for now. (see http://www.all-creatures.org/hope/gw/02_Alberta_tar_sands.htm ) The solution will come shortly. Meanwhile, just bear in mind, between the mouse and the dinosaur, which is still alive today?

About Anthony Marr

Anthony Marr
* has a degree in physics
* is the author of "OMNI-SCIENCE and the Human Destiny" (2003) and "Homo Sapiens SAVE YOUR EARTH" (2008)
* 1995, he cleaned up N. American Chinatowns of endangered species medicines
* 1996, he led "the highest-profile anti-trophy-hunting campaign in Canada" (Globe and Mail).
* 1997-1999, he worked in 3 tiger reserves in India.
* 1999, he founded Heal Our Planet Earth (HOPE).
* 2004/2005, he conducted operations in Japan against whaling and dolphin slaughter.
* 2003-2011, completed 7 Compassion for Animals Road Expeditions (CARE tours, each covering 30-45 states over 4-7 months), and spoke at the National AR Conference every year
* 2009, he founded the Global Anti-Hunting Coalition (GAHC)
* 2010, he won the Henry Spira Grassroots Activist Award.
www.HOPE-CARE.org
www.facebook.com/AnthonyMarr001
www.HomoSapiensSaveYourEarth.blogspot.com
www.AnthonyMarr13.wordpress.com
www.Dying-for Salvation.blogspot.com